He nodded.
“Astaroth said you’d turned your back on me, were fighting against me. But it isn’t true, is it? I—I believe in you. In us. I’m so sorry I pushed you away. I didn’t know how much I believed until now.” I struggled to catch my breath. He just stood there, watching me. “Feel free to jump in anytime.”
“Actually, I kind of like seeing you squirm a little.” He winked.
“Asher!” I hit him in the arm—hard.
“Ow! Hey! I thought you believed in us! This doesn’t feel like believing.”
“Then just answer me this, okay? The fire? The flood? I saw you there. What were you doing?”
His eyes grew serious. “You saw me, huh?”
“You know I did.”
He sighed and raked his hair back from his face.
“Look, Skye,” he began. “I went back to the Rebellion out of duty and loyalty. And—this is hard to admit, okay?—once I was there, you were all I could think about. I had to find a way to keep you safe, to end this. I realized something. Ardith and Gideon, they’re only loyal to the Rebellion because they’re loyal to each other. They’re fighting for revenge out of love, not ideology. I don’t have anything like that tying me to the Rebels.” His dark eyes met mine. “Not since you left.”
I held his gaze, my heart beating faster. “So what are you saying, exactly?”
“I’m saying,” he said, breaking out into an adorable grin, “that . . .” He took my face in both his hands. “In a shocking turn of events, I’ve been rebelling against the Rebellion.”
I stared. “You . . . what?”
“I’ve been trying to bridge communication with the Guardians, to make peace—to help you. But neither side would listen, they only ramped up their plans to attack. So I had to work in more covert ways. The fire, the flood; all I could do was show up and try to keep the damage from growing however I could with my powers. I kept Aunt Jo from getting engulfed in flames during that fire. I gave you the extra boost of elemental power you needed to part the waters of the river and save Cassie. Only I had to do it in secret, in the shadows—if the Rebellion found out I was helping you, they’d have killed me.”
I knew I should say something, but all I could think was, You didn’t betray me. My mouth hung open. “That—that was you? You did that? For me?”
Suddenly, it all made so much sense. Of course, I realized. During the fire at Into the Woods, I’d felt the definite presence of powers at work. And I’d been on the brink of collapse in Foster’s Woods during the flood when something had given me a surge of energy. Asher hadn’t been there to attack me—he’d been there to help me. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.” I smiled. “I knew it.”
“I never could. I was trying so hard to put an end to this, so I could find a way for us to be together. It was just taking a really”—he paused, and took a breath, and grinned at me—“really long time. But there is no way, Skye. There’s no end. The only way to see this through is to fight.”
My heart fell. But when I looked up into his eyes, I didn’t feel hopeless. Instead, I felt a surge of confidence. “Asher, will you fight with me?”
He slid his arms around my waist and pulled me toward him. Our bodies pressed together, a bloom of heat in the freezing waterfall. “Skye,” he said. “My Skye. I wouldn’t fight alongside anyone else.”
And then he kissed me like I’d never been kissed in my life. As far as I was concerned, all those other kisses were just practice. This was the one that mattered. The first kiss of the rest of my life.
“I can’t believe I found you,” I shouted above the din of the crashing waterfall.
He smoothed the sopping hair out of my eyes. “I knew we’d find a way.” He pulled me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me and tucking the top of my head under his chin. “I love you,” he whispered. And even though water crashed in our ears, I heard him perfectly.
“I love you, too,” I said fiercely. “I am never letting you go again.”
“Why did you the first time?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I got scared.”
“You?”
“I was afraid that if I let myself fall for you, I wouldn’t be able to stop.”
Once the words left my lips, I knew that they were true, and always had been. That was everything I’d felt since turning seventeen, wrapped up in the tiniest of nutshells. Chaos versus control. If I let myself fall, I would keep falling. And what if there was no one to catch me?
Asher cupped his hands under my face gently.
“I wouldn’t let you fall alone,” he whispered.
But as he said it, my vision swam with light and color and sound and my lungs burned bright and my hands and arms shook violently, and then my legs gave out and I fell into him. The chaos, the emotion—it was too much.
“I—I have to go,” I said.
“I’m coming with you.” His voice sounded far away. I felt myself going under the water, darkness creeping along the edges of my vision. “Skye!” Asher shook me. “Stay with me! Come on, stay awake. Without you, none of this is worth fighting for.”
Light flashed around me. For a brief second, everything went still, and we were back in the snow cave, Asher surrounding me in warmth and light as I was about to pass out from pain. “Asher,” I whispered. I knew I sounded delirious. “Will you go with me to prom tonight?”
He laughed. “That’s tonight? Hm, I think I have plans but lemme see if I can move some things around.”
“Shut up,” I mumbled. My tongue was growing heavy in my mouth.
“Shh,” he said. He lifted me up in his arms, freezing water streaming from my clothes. I could hardly feel my body anymore.
“If you move any slower, I’m not going to make it to prom, and then you’ll have to go by yourself,” I said hoarsely. He laughed. The world was spinning into chaos, and I was spinning with it.
“Come on, Skye Parker. Daughter of dark and light. Let’s get you home.”
He held me in his arms, and the sky grew brighter, too bright, blinding, and I felt myself pass into darkness as he said, “This time I really can save your life. Because you saved mine.”
26 
Mist swirled around us. I opened my eyes, felt the floor beneath us, saw my bed, my dresser, the window that looked out over the mountains. Asher had brought me home. We were kneeling, facing each other. “I’m sorry it took me this long to realize that fighting for you was just as important as fighting for the universe.”
He grinned, but his eyes were serious. “I’ll always fight for you, Skye,” he said. “We’ll fight for each other now. No matter what. Promise?”
“Promise.”
I smoothed his hair back, and something changed in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped it with my own.
This time when we kissed I knew it was different. With hands that trembled slightly, he peeled off my soaking wet tank top. My hair got caught, but he laughed and gently untangled it. I slid off his jacket and pulled the faded black T-shirt, still damp, over his head. I pressed myself against the smooth, olive brown skin of his chest, and he traced his fingers up my back. My breath caught, and when I hesitated, he pulled me closer.
“Come here,” he whispered. He wrapped his arms around my waist and lowered me gently to the floor, spreading his old army jacket beneath us. “Is this okay?”
I nodded, laughing softly.
“What?” he asked, smiling back. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”